From the author's afterword:
"There was nothing to be done about my personal shame, of course. I could only dismiss
it. Time and thought brought me to the realization that I had no reason to feel ashamed.
Suppose for a moment that my worst fears were realistic: that I am in fact an Angus
Thermopyle thinly disguised by niceness; that this fact is transparent in The Real
Story; and that all right-thinking readers will be disgusted by the results. So what?
None of that impinges on the integrity of The Real Story itself. If I drew on some
buried part of myself to create Angus, so much the better: at least I'm writing what I know."

At first it would seem plain that Angus is the Villain; he has captured Morn and has put a
zone implant into her head. Morn Hyland would seem to be the Victim; completely under the
control of Angus she has no choices or volition. Nick is a self-centered pirate, but why
does he plot to rescue Morn and put Angus in jail until he rots? Is it really a surprise
that Angus will not reveal the facts that will imprison Nick and Morn? Perhaps Angus is
showing courage and has a grasp of the larger scope of things. Or perhaps he is plotting
some deeper betrayal. As the story progresses the reader observes not only the roles of
Hero, Villain, Victim getting swapped around, but also the characters are drawn with
enough depth that their motivations are transparent. It would be hard to read these
stories and not examine one's own corebeliefs. And that, more than anything else, is the
mark of an inspired story.